Top 3 Methods Involved in Identifying Elites

1. Positional Approach:

The determination of elites on the basis of position was done by selecting persons who were occupying the objectively defined top for­mal offices. To check the salability and validity of these positions, a list of top positions was circulated among a panel of knowledgeable who were in substantial agreement with the list. In all, 41 persons were identi­fied as positional elites. Persons holding these positions were supposed to wield influence.

2. Reputational Approach:

To identify elites through the reputational approach, different variants were taken into account. Nominations were sought from three different panels of knowledgeable. One panel of knowledgeable consisted of the heads of the voluntary organizations; another was constituted through snow-ball; and the third panel was of such persons who came from differ­ent walks of life. We also selected respondents from a cross-section of the population to give nominations.

In all, four variants of reputational ap­proach were employed. Variant first identified 23 persons as elites, whereas variant second and third identified 21 and 23 persons, respec­tively. And lastly, in all, 21 elites were selected by a cross-section of the population. A group of researchers maintain that randomly selected samples are not in a position to perceive the power structure accurately and instead they suggest the nomination from the panel of knowledgeable. How­ever, this may be treated as an empirical question and it can be seen here whether the elites being perceived by the knowledgeable are the same as those perceived by randomly selected samples.

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The overall selection of these variants reveals a high degree of consen­sus among all the four categories of respondents. Eighty per cent of the elites identified by samples were also identified by the first panel of knowledgeable.

Large proportions (76%) of the elites selected by sam­ples were also specified by the second panel of knowledgeable, and 71 per cent of them were also identified by third panel of knowledgeable. Only three of the 21 elites identified by sample failed to be included in the list selected by the knowledgeable.

Even more significant was the degree of agreement among the nomi­nations with regard to the uppermost range of community power. Nine of the ten persons most frequently considered influential by all the four sets of the respondents were common to all. The individual first ranked of all the categories was the same. The data show that despite different sets of nominators each set per­ceived substantially the same set of persons as influential in community affairs.

Still more interesting is the fact that even a cross-section of popula­tion was also able to perceive members of power structure as was done by the panels of knowledgeable invalidating the assumption that randomly selected samples are not expected to perceive power structure accurately. We found in all 34 persons, who could be considered elites in terms of the reputational approach.

3. Issue Participation Approach:

To identify the issue participants, it is essential to identify the important community issues.

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Five major issues were:

(1) retention of the unified seat of High Court at Jodhpur,

(2) levy of octroi,

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(3) opening and location of Medical College,

(4) urban identity, and

(5) introduction of city bus serv­ice.

In all, 64 elites were identified as issue participants. When the elites were identified with the help of three approaches the names were ana­lyzed for duplication and reduced to a total of 30 elites. The empirical work based on the simultaneous use of all the major approaches for the identification of elites provided an opportunity for a comparative testing of these approaches themselves.

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The adequacy of the positional approach has been doubted by many scholars and its basic assumption that “those who hold positions of authority are actually in a position to make important deci­sions and those who do not hold such positions do not do so’—has seriously been challenged.

In the light of the above statement, an attempt was made to ascertain whether the assumption of this approach came true in an Indian urban community or the data supported the view of the op­ponents of this approach that it was not likely that position—holders would necessarily be issue participants. On the basis of this assumption, one may expect that position-hold­ing is associated with decision-making. The data of this study with regard to the positional approach suggest that 51 per cent of the positional elites were also issue participants and they constituted only 37 per cent of all the issue participants.

This suggests reluctance in accepting the view that office-holding is necessarily related to issue participation. There is no one- to-one correlation between top positions and issue participants but we found that out of every two positional elites, one was also an issue partici­pant. It may be taken to follow that a moderate relationship exists between position holding and issue participation, and thus one aspect of the basic assumption of the positional approach, i.e., those who hold posi­tions are necessarily the issue participants, does not stand true in this study.

The advocates of the positional approach also hold that those who do not hold top positions are not supposed to be is­sue participants; but contrary to their expectation, a large section (63%) of the issue participants do not hold such positions, as might have been in­cluded in our study. Thus, it would be rather inaccurate to say that the issue participants are necessarily the positional elites. Some studies, how­ever, have lent at least some support to the idea that there exists a relationship between position holding and decision-making but some others have clearly contradicted the relationship.

Having examined the assumption, we now turn to examine whether the positional elites have been perceived influential in terms of the reputational approach. It would show as to what extent the positional elites were perceived as influential. Our data reveal that 49 per cent of them were also perceived influential. Thus, it may be inferred that out of every two positional elites one was also a reputational elite.

Further, the data suggest that 59 per cent of the reputational elites were holding one or the other positions. This again suggests a moderate relationship between posi­tion and reputation. Some other studies that found relationship between position and reputation more particularly in small communities and ac­cordingly hold that positional approach is a quicker and dependable approach to identify elites in small communities. But contradicting the view two other studies have shown that this approach is not applicable even in small communities, and there too the relationship does not exist.

Thus, the analysis leads us to conclude that office-holding is not nec­essarily related to issue participation and reputation. In short, the positional approach taken alone can identify only partially the members of the power structure; hence this approach by itself may not be valid. We now turn to the reputational approach. When the list of elites identified by reputational approach was compared with that of the posi­tional elites, it was found that 59 per cent of the reputational elites also had their place in the list of positional elites. That is to say that 59 per cent of the reputational elites were holding one or the other important of­fices.

Similarly, the data suggest that 76.5 per cent of the reputational elites were also issue participants, which shows that a significantly large proportion of the reputational elites does not only have reputation for power, but they have expressed it in real-life situations and are more pow­erful participants than others. Further, they are not confined to only one issue. The two persons who had participated in all the five issues, another one who had participated in four issues, and all those persons who had participated in three issues, were reputational elites as the data suggest that on an average they had participated in more issues than others.

The overlapping of reputational elites in the list of positional elites and issue participants showed beyond doubt that the respondents were able to perceive the power structure accurately, and that there was a cor­respondence in the understanding of the respondents and the investigator about the meaning of the term “power”. Another index was used to fur­ther establish this point. The opponents of the reputational approach criticize it on the ground that respondents, more particularly the ran­domly selected are not able to perceive the power structure, accurately.

Surprisingly enough, this does not hold true in our study. The randomly selected respondents had identified almost the same set of persons as panels of knowledgeable, and most of them were also identified by the other two approaches. In the face of such evidence, it is difficult to agree with the view that respondents do not understand the term ‘power’ and are not in a position to locate power structure accu­rately. No doubt this approach had left out a number of positional and issue participants, but data clearly indicate that these unidentified posi­tional elites were not being perceived as important position holders as those who had been identified by the reputational approach also.

The re­putational approach identified generally persons holding elective political posts, heads of Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Club, welfare organi­zations and chairmen of semi-governmental organizations. Only one of the government officials had been identified who was a highly placed judi­cial officer. Government officers were apparently not held in high esteem by the community leaders. Similarly, those issue participants who were not identified by the reputational approach had less participation in com­parison to those who had been identified so. This shows that the upper layer of both positional and issue participants had been identified by the reputational approach.

After examining these aspects, we now turn to the scope of influence of these reputational elites. It is interesting to note that the elites identi­fied by the reputational approach excel other elites in issue participation, organizational membership and area of influence. The data reveal that reputational elites had more organizational membership than that of others which indicates that their participation in organizations was more varied than the remaining elites. Similarly, reputational elites were active in sev­eral areas. This fact may further be corroborated by the perception of one elite about the other.

A question was asked to indicate the areas of influ­ence of these elites. For a larger section of reputed elites (22), it was reported that they were influential in two or more areas. It may be re­called here that in this study only 29 elites were perceived influential in two or more areas, and out of them 22 were reputational elites showing beyond doubt that the reputational elites were generally influential and they were not confined to a particular field.

Thus, on the basis of empiri­cal evidence it may be said that:

1. Reputational elites are generally influential;

2. Respondents, even randomly selected, perceive the power structure as well as knowledgeable; and

3. Reputational elites are active participants in issues and organizations.

Our data do not suggest, however, the existence of a stable group over a period of time. This can be possible only when a study of this kind is conducted again after some lapse of time. The issue participation approach has identified 64 elites but the analy­sis is based on 56 elites.

Out of these 56 participants, 37 per cent and 46 per cent were found in positional and reputational lists, respectively, and on the whole 45 per cent of the issue participants were not identified by either of the two approaches. This clearly suggests that the issue partici­pants are also not necessarily reputational whereas the reputational elites are generally issue participants.